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By jamie, February 26, 2012 11:49 pm

A new month is coming up next week, so here is my list of planned books. You will notice that, though my goal it one book a week, there are more than four books on the list. I started reading digital books this month, and I love it; although paper books remain my favorites, there is something to be said about always having a book to read as long as your book reader (mine is the Nook tablet) remains charged. I read more than usual this week, and I’m sure this was the reason. So my list contains both digital and paper choices – I will see how the month goes, and I’ll consider it a success if I get four finished in March. I haven’t forgotten about my Unfinished Business, either.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins – Our niece has enthusiastically recommended this series since before it was complete. The first film will be released in March, so I am going to try to get at least the first book read before I see the movie. [Digital books]

Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent – My mom picked this one up for me awhile ago. We talk about the Prohibition quite a lot in my classes, and I’m looking forward to have more details about this time in U.S. history. [Paperback]

Telling Memories Among Southern Women: Domestic Workers and Their Employers in the Segregated South, by Susan Tucker – Kathryn Stockett mentions, at the end of The Help, that she used this book as background. My mom is reading it right now, and really enjoying it. When I go go home for Spring Break next month, it’s my turn. [Paperback]

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, by David Brooks – This one is already out in paperback. Sadly, I have had my copy for a long time and just haven’t gotten to it yet. It’s time. [Hardcover]

Imagine: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer – I have another Jonah Lehrer book hanging around in “unfinished business.” That’s because I misplaced the book and then started too many others. Rather than beat myself up about it, I will try to get both of these read over the next month or two – he is one of my favorite authors. The book will be released mid-March, and I have pre-ordered my copy. [Hardcover]

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, by Alexandra Robbins – My daughter is only three, but I see some of my students juggling multiple responsibilities and I wonder how it will be when Little Mama gets there. Our nieces are teenagers, and they seem to do an excellent job of balancing advanced level classes with other activities – I hope they will always be able to do this. [Digital]

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By jamie, June 16, 2010 3:17 am

I’m sure most of you have heard that the human tongue can only detect four tastes: sweet, sour, bitter and salty. Can you think of anything you have ever tasted that does not contain at least one of these elements? If you have been following along, then you can probably guess that this conventional “scientific” wisdom is not true – we can also taste “umami,” or “deliciousness.”

Even when I don’t read a book about food, the book ends up talking about food. This chapter begins with French chef, Auguste Escoffier, who defied the popular custom of his time by focusing on the flavor of food rather than the presentation (fancy food used to be served buffet style, cold, and with an emphasis on visual appearance over tastiness). Once again, there is a lot in this chapter, and I cannot possibly share it all with you here, so I’ll only give you some highlights.

Japanese chemist, Kikunae Ikeda first discovered the taste sensation “umami” (which means “delicious” in Japanese). It’s an amino acid, L-glutamate, which is uncovered when a particular protein is cooked, fermented, etc. The discussion of the science in this section is fascinating – foodies will likely enjoy reading this entire chapter. Long story short, MSG is a synthetic substitute for L-glutamate – it makes food taste delicious (Lehrer does not mention anything else it does).

“Why wouldn’t we have a specific taste for protein? We lover the flavor of denatured protein because, being protein and water ourselves, we need it. Our human body produces more than forty grams of glutamate a day, so we constantly crave an amino acid refill. (Species that are naturally vegetarian find the taste of umami repellent. Unfortunately for vegans, humans are omnivores.) In fact, we are trained from birth to savor umami: breast milk has ten times more glutamate than cow milk. The tongue loves what the body needs.”

Escoffier served his foot hot, which allowed patrons of his restaurants to involve their noses in the eating experience – some of the molecules of hot food drift to our nostrils. Much of what we think we taste when we eat, we are really smelling – up to 90%, according to Lehrer. This must explain why, when I had a cold last week, nothing was worth eating – I couldn’t seem to “taste” ANYTHING because I couldn’t smell anything. I think our brains can compensate for this when there is trouble though, because some people have no sense of smell and they can taste things. I once had an upper respiratory infection that left me unable to smell for a few months (even after I was no longer sick – I worried that it might not return, and was relieved when it slowly came back – I guess I was regrowing damaged receptors) – food still had flavor.

Escoffier also paid attention to other details, from the dishes and silverware to the outfits of the waiters, making sure everything was very fancy so diners would expect fancy food too. Lehrer uses some of the same examples as in How We Decide to illustrate that when we think we are getting something expensive, our minds think we are getting something better, even if we are not. Have you guys ever tested this? I think that I am not susceptible to the idea that expensive always means better, though I may be fooling myself. Let’s see – I buy store brand medications, and I try the other products too and only reject them if they are not up to my standards (for example, I am picky about pickles – store brands rarely do it for me).

One more thing about the great Auguste Escoffier – he invented the menu because he realized that not everyone has the same preferences in food. The science behind this: we have thousands upon thousands of taste and smell receptors, and the ones we don’t use wither away. The more we smell and/or taste a particular flavor/scent, the more receptors we grow for that particular flavor/scent. This is how we can develop a taste for something that we previously did not like. As Lerher puts it, “because the sense of taste is extremely plastic, it can be remodeled by new experiences. It’s never too late to become a gourmet.” (Note to Hubby – Honey, there is hope for you and vegetables yet!).

Other posts about Proust was a Neuroscientist:

Post 1: Walt Whitman – Proust was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer
Post 2: George Eliot and Our Clay Brains
Post 3: Deliciousness and Auguste Escoffier

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By jamie, June 14, 2010 8:54 am

My second grade teacher used to tell us that we each have a finite number of brain cells and we have to work very hard for all of our lives to keep our them from dying – we lose them if we don’t use them. She had been teaching for 52 years when I was in her class, and she told us she was able to stay sharp by doing a crossword puzzle every morning before starting her day.

This lesson was supported by what I later learned in psychology class. We were taught that we have all of our neurons (brain cells) in place at birth, and they start sloughing off if unused (we also could lose them by inhaling chemicals, etc.). The good news was that they could arbolize – that means they could form branches – if they were well used, which would somewhat make up for the neurons we lost.

Chapter 2 revolves around author, George Eliot. “Eliot’s art argued that the mind was ‘not cut in marble.’ She believed that that the most essential element in human nature was its malleability, the way each of us can ‘will ourselves to change.’” Her philosophy ran contrary to the popular idea of the day that everything and everyone had to follow the “cosmic rules” and that there was really no free will. I remember becoming disillusioned with psychology as a discipline in part because I had some professors who tended toward this paradigm – all of our actions could be explained by our biology, even crime. It annoyed me to think that nothing bad could ever be our fault. Had more of my professors embraced nurture over nature – who knows? Some criminologists emphasize brain chemistry over other factors as well – I like to think that we can overcome our individual “nature.”

I have not kept up with current psych research, so I was happy to learn that, unlike what Ms. Mawenny told us in second grade, and contrary to my undergrad psychology textbooks, George Elliot was correct – it turns out we get fresh neurons every day. I should not have been surprised by this, because several of my parenting books say that a child’s brain does most of its growing between birth and age five. I have also read that some of the brain does not complete its development until around age twenty-five.

Remember how the phrenologists used to discount any information that disagreed with their theories? They were not the only ones. Though evidence has existed for decades, scientists insisted that it was impossible for neurons to regenerate, or for primates to get new ones, until it became impossible for them to do so. I know it must be hard to admit being wrong, but I would think that scientists would welcome new information if it might help them learn more – I would think they would rather avoid spinning their wheels using incorrect data for decades.

Jonah Lehrer explains that past research probably didn’t show new neuron growth because it utilized animals in a lab. Evidently, certain situations can hinder neuron growth – like living in a lab, for instance. A richer, more stimulating environment is more conducive to neuron growth. The really good news is that the brain can heal itself – children who are adopted from non-stimulating environments experience huge jumps in IQ after a relatively short time. I have had friends who try to do all they can to optimize their children’s brain growth up to age five (and worry that they aren’t doing enough) – it seems every age counts, and we should not pressure ourselves and our children to try to squeeze it all in before age five.

I really enjoyed this chapter, because it provides a great deal of research about our malleability. Beyond the brain, our DNA seems to have formed randomly, and we are not entirely bound by the DNA of our ancestors (and I have also read that DNA can change as a result of environmental factors). While this might be freeing for some, it is also sad to be reminded that we can’t just cure all diseases by mapping DNA and then altering everyone’s “damaged” genes. I guess it should not be surprising that we cannot easily distill human life down to individual parts just as we can’t reduce our food to individual components, as we have learned from Michael Pollan.

Other posts about Proust was a Neuroscientist:

Post 1: Walt Whitman – Proust was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer
Post 2: George Eliot and Our Clay Brains
Post 3: Deliciousness and Auguste Escoffier

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By jamie, June 9, 2010 7:10 pm

I have to admit, I have an academic crush on Jonah Lehrer. He is brilliant in a way that I aspire to be, a talented writer, and so much more. One of things I like the best about him is that he forms interesting connections between things he learns and things he already knows (I try to do that myself, and it can be tricky at times). This book is an example of this talent – while working in a lab, he decides to read Proust (for entertainment while waiting for things to finish), and discovers that the book he is reading dovetails nicely the data he is collecting about human memory. He takes this a step further, writing a book about how artists and writers of the past were exceptionally good at uncovering “mysteries” of the mind, essentially predicting the findings that modern-day psychologists are only now “discovering.”

It is possible that this book is too “smart” for me – I am very impressed that Lehrer managed to cultivate a strong background in the Humanities while simultaneously enjoying academic success in psychology. I read the table of contents, and was instantly intimidated – I have heard of most of the artists/writers, but I can’t tell you anything about them. And now that we are without Internet – (I am writing this in a Notepad file in anticipation of future web access), I can’t even look them up!

The first chapter is about Walt Whitman, a poet, most famous for writing Leaves of Grass. He caused quite a stir in his time by asserting that our feelings and emotions originate in our bodies, rather than our brains, and that our flesh and minds are connected in a way that was not believed in his day. Modern psychologists have found that Whitman was right – without our bodies, where would feelings be? We know that we feel our emotions in a visceral way – we feel fear and excitement in our guts, not our heads – but now science backs up the idea that some emotions originate in our bodies before they enter our conscious minds.

Interesting trivia from the chapter (you’ll have to read it yourself for a meatier portion):

I always thought that Leaves of Grass was a collection of nature poems. As it turns out, Whitman chose the title because, in printing jargon, “leaves” meant “pages” and “grass” meant “compositions of little value.” When I read this, I wondered whether this choice was driven by arrogance or humility, and guessed that it was probably the former.

Also, this chapters talks about phrenology, which is the study of the mind through the examination of bumps on the skull. It was very popular to have ones skull analyzed. Bumpy spots indicated parts of the brain that were well-used, as opposed to the “shriveled” neglected parts. Phrenologists were so confident that they could determine a person’s strengths and weaknesses that they disputed any evidence that they might be wrong. Lehrer gives the example of Descartes, who had a very small forehead. Instead of considering him an anomaly, they “lampooned Descartes and declared ‘that he was not so great a thinker as he was held to be.’”

Other posts about Proust was a Neuroscientist:

Post 1: Walt Whitman – Proust was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer
Post 2: George Eliot and Our Clay Brains
Post 3: Deliciousness and Auguste Escoffier

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By jamie, April 27, 2010 11:31 pm

The other day at nursery school, Baby Girl had a bad day on the potty. She went through all of her supply of big girl undies, three sets of her own clothing, and was on her second set of “loaner” clothing and wearing a pull-up when her daddy picked her up. We have gotten rid of all of her pull-ups because she is doing so well, so this day was really a setback for her. When I got home from class, hubby explained that she cried a lot when he brought her home, and begged for a diaper instead of underwear. I wrote about this once before, how she already seems to have a fear of failure, and it worries me that we are messing her up with all of the praise she constantly gets. Our daughter, like other kids, hears how smart she is every single day, even though we are trying to avoid saying it to her – she is our first child, and we are routinely dazzled by something clever she says or does, and the first thing that pops into my head to say is how intelligent she is. Teachers, other parents, and even strangers tell children they are smart (and of course they tell girls how pretty they are). They even have electronic toys that say it to them when they get the right answer. It’s an epidemic!

I have not read many books this year, but this is the third one that provides scientific evidence that too much praise messes up our kids. Jonah Lehrer discusses some of the same research described in NurtureShock, and Barbara Coloroso devotes an entire chapter to the negative effects of praise.

Here are some highlights from this chapter (#1):

• When kids are constantly praised, and some of that praise is insincere, they learn to discount ALL praise.
• Because some parents and teachers use praise to help a kid do better at something they are not good at, many kids see praise as evidence that they have done something wrong or are deficient in some way.
• We should teach our children that their brain is a muscle, and that they can get smarter and better if they work hard and challenge themselves – exercising our brains makes us smarter!
• If we help our children see failures as opportunities to learn, we may be surprised at how much better they do next time around.
• When we DO give praise, it should be specific to their efforts, as opposed to generic to their perceived abilities (“You did a great job sounding out that hard word” instead of “You are so smart – what a perfect reader you are!”)

This chapter made me think about myself as well. I only like to do things if I am good at them. When I was little, I took piano lessons one summer – the book had numbers next to the notes to help teach finger placement – I ended up learning to “play by number” and didn’t learn the notes at all. Since learning the notes proved to be a challenge for me, I took the easy way out, and playing by number meant that I still sounded good. When the piano teacher finally got frustrated with my refusal to learn the notes and suggested that I might be better at something else, I didn’t look back – no more music lessons for me! In junior high, I had my entire schedule shifted around when I discovered that my art class caused too much anxiety for me – I wasn’t very good at it! A friend bought an IQ test book one time, and made copies so all of us could take the test and see how smart we were – I made myself chronically unavailable just in case I might learn that I had somehow lost IQ points (and I say I don’t care about those tests). As it turns out, a lot of gifted children shy away from challenges because they are afraid to learn they might not be as innately intelligent as they think they are and then, as I can attest, they become adults who do not like to do things they are not good at.

I have been avoiding public exercise because I have gotten out of shape. Well, last week I took a deep breath and joined the Y, where I have humiliated myself in a few Spinning classes so far, and may even go wild and try Zumba soon! I have to set a good example for my kiddo, and my brain is not the only muscle I can improve!

Other posts about NurtureShock:

Post 1: NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Post 2: Your Brain is a Muscle
Post 3: Sleeping Makes Kids Smarter
Post 4: Race is a Tricky Topic
Post 5: Tattletails and Liars
Post 6: IQ Tests for Toddlers
Post 7: I Love My Sister
Post 8: Those Wacky Teenagers
Post 9: Learning Through Play
Post 10: Daddy, Hug Mommy Now
Post 11: I am Raising a Little Chatterbox